Part of the fun of watching a season premiere of “Mad Men” is figuring out what year we're flashing back to this time.

There's a plethora of clues. You can count on creator and writer Matthew Weiner to be authentic, not only with the clothes, hair and fads of an era but also the events that fill headlines and conversations.

I won't ruin it by divulging the specific year (or years) of the drama's sixth outing. It can be said, however, that amid the men's longer hair and beards, the women's teased hairstyles, mod fashions and oversized Jackie sunglasses, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) still looks relatively unchanged.

Last season, against the backdrop of the Beatles, slinky new wife Megan and Roger tripping on LSD, Don's efforts to hold on to the past made him seem like a bit of a fuddy-duddy.

Things are different in Sunday's double-vodka shot of a premiere (8 to 10 p.m. on AMC). Yes, Don still looks like Don: clean-shaven, neatly coifed and meticulously suited. Here, though, we see his separateness not as old-fashioned but as a sign of deep introspection.

Right away, amid the vibrant colors of his surroundings, it's the inner Don we're drawn to. The season opens not in wintry New York but on a sunny beach in Hawaii; as we learn later, the trip is a work-related vacation keyed to a client, the Royal Hawaiian hotel. Don is reading Dante's “The Inferno,” and the first words we hear are in his head: “I went astray from the straight road and awoke to find myself alone in a dark wood.”

In fact, he doesn't actually speak until 10 minutes or so into the episode. While bikini-clad Megan (Jessica Pare) chatters on and embraces everything the tourist mecca offers — including a blue tropical drink and learning the hula — Don only opens up when he encounters a reminder of his past. A soldier on leave from his Vietnam tour approaches him in a bar, causing Don to recall his own time in Korea, when he left behind Dick Whitman and took on the identity of a dead soldier, Don Draper.

His — and the episode's — preoccupation with death continues throughout the two hours, the second of which is brilliantly directed by Hamm. Don witnesses a doorman collapse and come close to dying. Later, when Roger's mother dies and Don attends the funeral, drunk and sloppy, he's helped back to his apartment. His only concern, however, is asking the doorman what he saw during his near-death experience.

Meanwhile, the other characters are concerned with this world and forging their futures.

Megan is thrilled to get more scenes on a TV soap. The perennially humorless Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) grows impatient with Don's distant demeanor, emphasizing the importance of pleasing ad clients. Joan (Christina Hendricks) concentrates on the firm getting new offices. Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) throws herself into her new agency. Betty (January Jones) has her best storyline in ages; a solo trip to some seedy digs in Greenwich Village ends in an effort to reinvent herself.

Roger (John Slattery) is the one other character who contemplates death and, by extension, the real meaning of life. “What's it all about?” he asks his therapist but, in typical Roger fashion, turns the quandary into a joke.

There's no question, however, that the dominant spirit of the opener belongs to Don. It's fascinating to hear him try to express what now consumes him and watch as no one else really gets it. At a Sterling Cooper Draper ad pitch for the Royal Hawaiian, the artist's rendering shows the shedding of a man's clothes on a beach and footprints headed toward the ocean. Don describes it as Hawaii being an experience like no other — a feeling of your soul leaving and re-entering your body.

The bewildered hotel execs, however, don't share his excitement; they view the proposed ad as simply a man committing suicide.

The new “Mad Men” more aptly reflects Don's interpretation; the drama seems reinvigorated and fresh as we look forward to more of season six's introspective approach.

Jeanne Jakle's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays in S.A. Life, and she blogs at Jakle's Jacuzzi on mySA.com. Email her at jjakle@express-news.net.